The Stars fire was no match for that of the Flames, as the Stars beat them 3-1 Tuesday.

Calgary got on the board first, with a power play goal from Michael Cammalleri just under 7 minutes into the game. With under a minute remaining, Jere Lehtinen tied it up on the Stars power play with a tip-in. Only one goal was scored during the second period, and that was ANOTHER power play goal from rookie James Neal. And to put the finishing touches, with just over 3 minutes remaining in the game, Brad Richards made it 3-1, which would remain the final score.

The Stars came out hard, and stayed persistant, winning a lot of puck battles and kept the Flames scoring chances to a minimum. When he needed to make a save Marty Turco was there and looked like the great goalie he was last year in the playoffs. They are definitely looking good right now.

(I apologize for this being so late. I had every intention to update last night, but got distracted by the internet, mostly by failblog and this gem on youtube.)

Last season, I did a post showing where everyone was after exactly half a season of play, 41 games. I did it again this year. I actually spent about 2 hours getting it all in order last week but kept forgetting to post it. We’re not a few games past the mid-season point, but whatevs. Here is what the standings looked like.

For the first time since February, the Stars have managed to string together 2 wins. I am in shock and I am excited!! The Flames had been on a 3-game win streak, and had been playing pretty well!

Marty stepped up to help keep us in the game, especially in the second period. Our defense definitely weren’t up to par, but Marty was there to make those saves we had become accustomed to him making last season.

The Stars never trailed in this game, I can’t remember the last time I said that. They left the first period up 1-0 with a goal from Toby Petersen. Then left the second period up 2-1 thanks to Fabian Brunnstrom. Loui Eriksson sealed the deal in the last 15 seconds of the game with an empty net goal to make the final 3-1.

Is this what a confident team looks like? I had forgotten. Could this rally be because Avery wasn’t there? That is entirely possible. After watching this TSN video, it does seem Avery wasn’t too popular in the locker room.

So while a tad bored, I decided to look up our records against our two possible foe’s for round 2 to decide who I’d rather play more. Granted, we played one team twice as much as the other, but still. We can get an idea as to who we played better against in the regular season. I know, I know, postseason changes everything, but it’s still a nice baseline.

First up: San Jose SharksI’m sure we will never forget that last game of the year, which the Stars managed to win. That game alone shows me we could take on the Sharks. But what about how we did during the season? We managed to come out even going 4-2-2. We did, however, manage to out score them 24-21 even with the oh so great Nabokov in net.

The other possibility is the Colorado Avalanche.
I hate this team, I don’t hide this. And yes, it’s because I’m bitter about some previous playoff series where we were knocked out. This season, though, the Stars weren’t too bad against them, it was even at 2-2 with the Stars outscoring 13-8. I think it’s time for payback, so I think our chances against this team as good as well.

I really got nothing done as far as this goes, because I think we could face either team and come out on top. They’re pretty much even with the way our club played them this season.

So we go to the back up plan: who would I rather have the blasted Detroit Red Wings play? Their possible opponents being the Colorado Avalanche or the Calgary Flames. Judging by their play against these two teams in the regular season, I’m rooting for the Flames here. Colorado were shut out 3 times by the Wings and were outscored 11-2. Ouch. The Flames, on the other hand, were able to hand the Red Wings a shutout of their own! And the scoring wasn’t so uneven, being 13-7 in the Wings favor. So..with all that being said; Go Flames!